Influencing Machines | Hacker News Reader

Influencing Machines

reallifemag.com

41 pointskawera10 comments

Two theories:

- mind first: mental illness of the form described has always been with humans, just that new technologies give people new words to describe the core phenomenon

- technology first: the human species has developed tools/mental abstractions (telephones, internet, germ theory, global warming, cancer, radio waves, nuclear physics, etc.) which intricacies have some weird interaction with the minds of a small percent of the population. I don't mean that these things in themselves affect the human mind; but that these sort of things are like "mind viruses", hijacking thought processes.

Reminds me of:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgellons

http://www.meltingasphalt.com/neurons-gone-wild/

It seems clear to me that schizophrenic people generally think they are being tortured with whatever technology is appropriate from the age in which they live. In that famous first writeup, the method of torture was "pneumatic chemistry". In the 70s, it was all about picking up radio signals in tooth fillings ("what's the frequency, Kenneth?"). Now people are being tortured with stuff akin to wifi signals or satellites.

Man. I feel like I got blasted with a word salad here. To me the main value of this piece is to raise awareness that the internet is serving as a kind of incubator for mental illness just as it does for, well, everything else.

I often see it in action because a lot of my YouTube subscriptions are to people who are almost certainly schizophrenic. The videos they post have very little to offer a normal person. I think most of the people who show up to watch and comment are also mentally ill. Someone may post a video claiming that the NSA is monitoring their thoughts via satellites and then receive 10 comments about "yeah, it's happening to me too" and "it's not via satellites, it's from black helicopters" and "it's not the NSA, it's Satan", etc.

If you've not run into this before, I think it would be eye-opening to spend an hour or two watching videos related to "targeted individual", "gang stalking", "voice to skull", "v2k", "remote neural monitoring", etc.

Honest question: why do you subscribe/follow these individuals? What do you get out their inchoate worldview?

When I was much younger, I found it funny. But then I learned about it, and it stopped being funny and became worrisome and frightening. An extremely debilitating disease that can strike anyone for no apparent reason, that makes you and your loved ones miserable, with no cure, that causes you to deny you are sick and actively resist treatment.

What I find most frightening about the possibility of developing schizophrenia is, nobody can talk you out of it. Your best friend and most trusted advisor could plead with you, and you'd probably see them as part of the evil empire.

And I just don't like it when we write people off. I can't treat people like ghosts. If I were schizophrenic and frantically uploading nonsensical "proof" to YouTube every day, I think I'd want someone to take 30 seconds to say something like "hey, buddy, sorry you're having a hard time, but I don't see any RF orgies being beamed to you. Have you talked to a doctor?"

I admire your compassion for your fellow human being. I mean that sincerely.

I also have a word of warning:

>"hey, buddy, sorry you're having a hard time, but I don't see any RF orgies being beamed to you. Have you talked to a doctor?"

Is a potentially dangerous thing to say to the genuinely ill. Like you said, no one can talk someone out of it, just like you can't talk a diabetic out of an insulin crisis. It is a physical ailment. While most schizophrenics are not violent, some are, and the ones that are can be deadly so. One of my high school teachers, who was a wonderful, warm woman, was recently murdered by her schizophrenic son during one of his episodes. He had never been violent before, but his breaks from reality were getting worse, and one day, that was enough. Just be careful of your own self, too, when offering a hand of help.

Se a ton of facebook groups about this kind of stuff and "organized gang stalking".

Poor people genuinely believe everyone around them is deliberately tormenting them, but it's made worse as they all enable one another.

Oh, the irony of discussing an all-powerful organization tracking your every movement... on Facebook.

So, what's the difference between these guys sharing a collective delusion and any other typical religion?

Most religious activities, in most major world religions, are boringly prosaic, and function as simple shared loci for community activities as much as anything else.

The mentally ill as described in this article simply use their shared experiences as paranoia fuel. None of the other aspects apply.

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